Por um Pouco de Amor

In view of some of the comments categorizing this film as unsatisfying soap opera, it all depends on what you're looking for. If what you want are excellent performances from a superior cast, then this is your kind of movie. Robert Ryan gives his typical outstanding performance as an extremely cynical newspaper editor who inflicts his particular brand of misery to the full on his long-suffering wife, beautifully portrayed by Myrna Loy. Maureen Stapleton is electrifying in her movie debut and received a well-deserved Oscar nomination for her riveting performance. Montomgery Clift's fragility works to his advantage here as an advice columnist whose sensitivity runs a little too deep. The haunted eyes and pained expressions perfectly match what the character in this situation would realistically feel and express. Overall, a nicely done, well-photographed film that is sure to hold the attention and is definitely worth the time to find and view.

Interesting newspaper tale with Montgomery Clift as interesting as ever, even though he'd had his car accident which changed his face. One of the best actors ever (along with Brando). He was great for the last 10 years of his life after his tragedy. Maureen Stapleton was heartbreakingly ignorant. Robert Ryan tough as nails. Myrna Loy beautiful and sensitive in a strange marriage and Mike Kellin adds authenticity. A great book by Nathaniel West who wrote DAY OF THE LOCUST.

I know this film bombed in '58..who cares? Too hip for the room. Definitely in the top ten of that year and Clift added another great character, even though he must have been in pain. Best performance = Maureen Stapleton (nominated).

... because of its cynicism and brutal honesty portrayed by the characters. However, at the end of it, I felt the men and women who worked on the film put forth a very good product. The underlying moral tones in the film got a little preachy to me, but it was from 1958, and adultery was still pretty big deal back then.

Montgomery Clift has the lead in this one, and while he does his usual good work, I thought his delivery of lines was quite similar to the way he played characters in "Judgment at Nuremburg", "A Place in the Sun", and "From Here to Eternity"--it seemed halted or deliberately tentative. If that's what the role called for, then he did well. If not, well, it just seemed hackneyed (to me anyway). I much rather like Clift in roles like he had in "The Search".

Robert Ryan was verbally sadistic in this one, and I thought he gave a fine performance, although admittedly, I haven't seen too many of his films. Myrna Loy played his wife and had a really emotional scene with Ryan in their apartment...and I absolutely loved it...it's not something you see from her all the time! Jackie Coogan and Dolores Hart provide good supporting roles, as does Maureen Stapleton as a sensuous psycho! Too bad for moviegoers that Hart answered a higher calling. I thought she was really good in this.

Dore Schary introduced modest films noirs into MGM's technicolor pantheon, and he wrote and produced this late (1957) entry. While Nathanael West's satire was exhilaratingly brutal, just about everything about this movie seems weary and faint-hearted. Montgomery Clift, fresh from the accident which just about scuttled his career, is the cub reporter shoved into the Miss Lonelyhearts column; he's so passive and tentative -- sometimes so hard to understand -- that it's not clear whether it's method acting or the aftermath of his car smashup. Robert Ryan, usually a stalwart of these mean S.O.B. roles, delivers the lines written for the cynical editor but you have the sense he was interested only in his paycheck. Myrna Loy is trashed as Ryan's long-suffering wife, emotionally abused because of some breach of marital fidelity in the distant past. (Why doesn't she just hurl her Cinzano in his face and stalk out?) But the film starts to smoulder when Maureen Stapleton arrives (she received an Academy Award nomination for this, her debut). As Edna Doyle, frustrated wife who starts an affair with Clift, she's unforgettable without ever lurching into one-dimensional parody. She's both sympathetic and repulsive, vindictive yet confused, victim and avenger. Too bad this movie was made at a time when they thought all Nathanael West's teeth had to be pulled for public consumption; the movie vanishes with a whimper. But West is hard to film; John Schlesinger's Day of the Locust, some 20 years later, didn't do a much better job.

Nathaniel West's "Lonelyhearts" is a haunting novella about how an idealistic young man is affected by his job as an advice-giving columnist for his town's newspaper. It was intelligently adapted for the stage in the mid-50's, and the film version plainly uses that adaptation as a reference point as much as the novel itself. In ways, the film expands on the play's success, opening it up to reveal an idealized 50's picture-postcard town on the surface before centering on the insensitivity lying just underneath. Writer/Producer Schary and Director Donohue are to be commended for the atmosphere they have successfully created. It is unfortunate that they did not have enough faith in the material to resist the temptation to give it a happy ending, an ending which really is not in keeping with the events which precede it.

It must have seemed like a great idea to cast Montgomery Clift in the lead role of Adam, and a few years earlier it would have been, but this compelling actor's personal demons had so impacted upon him by this time that it is impossible not to be distracted by his unhealthy state of being. His slurred speech, unsteady gait and jerky mannerisms are entirely at odds with this character, who is said to have never had a stronger drink than a coca-cola. He is too good of an actor not to have effective moments - he works beautifully with Onslow Stevens, who plays his father - but this is a performance that holds our attention largely for unintentional reasons. Maureen Stapleton is sensational in her film debut as a writer to the column who manipulates Adam, and her performance would be right at home in a more faithful and successful version of this novel. Otherwise, this is a well-intended film which fails both to adequately reflect the novel on which it is based and to succeed on it's own terms.